Data from: Temperature and consumer type dependencies of energy flows in natural communities

With the world continuously warming, a mechanistic understanding of how temperature affects interaction strengths, which are fundamental to food-web stability, is needed. As interaction strengths are determined by the flows of energy from resources to consumers, we investigated effects of temperature on animal energetics. We used newly compiled datasets on respiration rates and assimilation efficiencies to assess how temperature affects the energy use (respiration rates) and the efficiency of energy gain (assimilation efficiency) for different consumer types. Furthermore, we incorporated our findings in a simulation of temperature effects on maintenance feeding rates (i.e. energy consumption necessary to sustain life). Our analysis revealed a generally positive temperature dependence of assimilation efficiencies across consumer types thus implying a net energy gain with warming. The temperature scaling of respiration rates did not differ between consumer types. Based on these parameters we calculated maintenance feeding rates and compared them to empirically measured (realized) feeding rates. This comparison revealed that detritivores and herbivores have the potential to increase their biomasses under warming as their maintenance feeding rates increase less strongly than their realized feeding rates. For carnivores, however, we found a stronger increase of their maintenance feeding rates compared to their realized feeding rates, which should lead to decreased population sizes under warming. Overall, our results increase the understanding of climate change effects on ecosystems as they suggest profound energetic consequences for natural communities.

随着全球持续变暖，学界亟需从机制层面解析温度如何影响相互作用强度——而相互作用强度是决定食物网稳定性的核心要素。由于相互作用强度由资源向消费者的能量流动所决定，我们开展了温度对动物能量学影响的相关研究。本研究采用最新汇编的呼吸速率（respiration rates）与同化效率（assimilation efficiencies）数据集，评估了温度对不同消费者类群的能量消耗（即呼吸速率）与能量获取效率（即同化效率）的影响。此外，我们将研究结果纳入温度对维持摄食率（maintenance feeding rates，即维持生命所需的能量消耗）的模拟分析中。分析结果显示，所有消费者类群的同化效率均普遍呈现正向的温度依赖性，这意味着气候变暖下生物的净能量增益会提升。不同消费者类群的呼吸速率的温度缩放（temperature scaling）关系并无显著差异。基于上述参数，我们计算了维持摄食率，并将其与实测摄食率（realized feeding rates）进行对比。对比结果表明，食碎屑动物（detritivores）与植食动物（herbivores）在气候变暖下具备生物量增长的潜力，因为它们的维持摄食率增长幅度弱于实测摄食率。然而，我们发现肉食动物（carnivores）的维持摄食率增长幅度高于其实测摄食率，这将导致气候变暖下其种群规模缩减。总体而言，本研究结果深化了学界对气候变化生态效应的认知，其揭示了自然群落将受到显著的能量学层面的影响。